My mother wrote me an email after my last post. It was rather insightful actually. She talked about my decision not to go to college after graduating. It was a strange time. We moved right after I graduated and moved to Eastern Oregon. That summer was filled with lots of packing...endless packing. The books that my mother and father had collected was astounding. And of course the boxes could not be too big or NO ONE could lift them. I am sure others were around helping to pack also but I can't remember them.
I do remember my younger sister Ruth. She was going to be a senior and did not want to move. She did not help pack...this I do remember. She spent the summer going to girls camp, and hanging out with her friends and swimming....anything to avoid packing and the impending move away from her childhood home. At the time I did not think about it...could not think about it or I would not been so happy. At the time I just did what needed to be done. So my mother and I packed and packed and packed.
A few years before that my mother had had leg surgery to remove some vein in her legs. Back then the procedure was not so pleasant. They made a small incision at the top of the vein and the bottom and slurped that puppy out. That might not have been so bad except for the fact that the blood now had to find another way to get around. This was not pleasant. When my mother got home she went straight to bed with her legs wrapped tightly with ace bandages. These needed to be changed several times a day, which I remember helping with at least twice a day...then washing the bandages out in the sink.
After we moved to Oregon my father stayed in California to continue working in his OB/GYN practice leaving my mother and I, along with my sister and younger brother Brian behind. I had enrolled in cosmetology school and so we settled in. My mother started an amazing journey of her own. She had a thirst for spiritual knowledge that could not be quenched. I can remember her driving me to school and picking me up at night, which quickly turned into me driving myself. She sat at the kitchen table for what would turn into hours. I would get up and make sure the others got to school, and my mother ate, then go to school. Return home at lunch to fix her lunch, then return home to find something to fix for dinner....always finding her in the same place at the table. And almost as frequently she stayed there reading and writing into the late hours of the night.
My mother reminded me of this in her email. Telling me what an immense help I had been to her then. I had no idea really at the time, but looking back I can see that that is where I needed to be.
I did not finish beauty school there...I got sick with mono and after taking a few months off, I went back to the school to find that all of my things had been distributed to the other students. Yeah I was not so happy. But I did learn how unimportant I was there...and I was desperately needed at home.
I am not sorry for one minute for helping when I was needed, and am grateful that I was available. It would seem that there is a reason for where we are, at times in our lives. Reasons to be there whether to learn a lesson or to be of service to someone....or often times both. I am not really sure why I am where I am, at the moment....if I am serving...or learning. I think I am learning, I just have not discovered what the lessons are yet that I need to learn. I am pretty sure I have already learned patience and compassion....maybe this time it is patience and compassion for myself...maybe one of the hardest lessons of all.
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